Hood Grange

Behind this somewhat sad stone farmhouse lies eight centuries of quiet drama.

A hermitage stood here before 1138, when monks moved in under Roger de Mowbray’s patronage.¹“Hood Abbey.”Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Abbey. Accessed 19 July 2026. Cistercians took the place over, then shuffled off to Old Byland after five years, then on to Byland Abbey proper. Augustinian canons from nearby Newburgh Priory moved into the empty buildings, and Hood settled down as a small dependent cell of that priory.²“Newburgh Priory.” Yorkshire Moors, www.yorkshiremoors.co.uk/gazetteer/newburgh_priory.html. Accessed 19 July 2026. Locals sometimes called these canons “black canons”, simply for the colour of their habit, not because they were some rival order.³“Augustinian Canons Archives.” The History Jar, thehistoryjar.com/tag/augustinian-canons/. Accessed 19 July 2026.

By the mid nineteenth century the abbey was long gone and a farmhouse stood in its place. One gazetteer, printed in 1859, counted thirty people living in the parish.⁴“Kilburn, Yorkshire (North Riding).” GENUKI, www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/NRY/Kilburn. Accessed 19 July 2026. A slightly later one counted twenty five.⁵“History of Hood Grange, in North Yorkshire and North Riding.” A Vision of Britain through Time, University of Portsmouth, www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/12934. Accessed 19 July 2026. Either way, Hood Grange was already a small place, and about to get smaller still.

In April 1879, the Sheffield Daily Telegraph ran an odd little story about a parish with a single ratepayer.⁶“A Parish with but One Ratepayer.” Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 17 Apr. 1879. Mrs Ann Leconby rented the whole township, paid the highway rate herself, and picked the parish guardian. A one-woman parish council, more or less.

Today only one household remains, and the estimated population in 2015 was ten.⁷“Hood Grange.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Grange. Accessed 19 July 2026. The stone in the photograph has outlasted the monks, the tenant farmers, and most of the neighbours.

• 1
  “Hood Abbey.”Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Abbey. Accessed 19 July 2026.
• 2
  “Newburgh Priory.” Yorkshire Moors, www.yorkshiremoors.co.uk/gazetteer/newburgh_priory.html. Accessed 19 July 2026.
• 3
  “Augustinian Canons Archives.” The History Jar, thehistoryjar.com/tag/augustinian-canons/. Accessed 19 July 2026.
• 4
  “Kilburn, Yorkshire (North Riding).” GENUKI, www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/NRY/Kilburn. Accessed 19 July 2026.
• 5
  “History of Hood Grange, in North Yorkshire and North Riding.” A Vision of Britain through Time, University of Portsmouth, www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/12934. Accessed 19 July 2026.
• 6
  “A Parish with but One Ratepayer.” Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 17 Apr. 1879.
• 7
  “Hood Grange.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Grange. Accessed 19 July 2026.